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Mark your calendar for the annual Dumbo Arts Festival, which runs September 28-30! I’ll be participating in the annual art extravaganza for the fourth year running, and if this year is anything like last (probably, since it’s again sponsored by AT&T), it’ll be a packed weekend. Last year I had over 800 visitors — no small feat in a building with 68 Jay’s labyrinthian hallways and ten floors of studios.

My studio will be open Saturday and Sunday from noon to 6:00 PM. I’ll be selling archival/editioned images and work prints, and exhibiting some of the 800+ shots I’ve taken around the City in the last few months. Come by if you can!

I’m at:
68 Jay Street
Suite 305
718-222-2960

Directions: Take the F train to York Street (first stop in Brooklyn). Exit the station, turn right, and walk downhill to 68 Jay. I’m on the third floor.

Six of my photographs are included in a beautiful new book just released by the Swiss art publisher Niggli Verlag. Out of Focus: Pinhole Photography and Photographs is by Peter Olpe, a long-time teacher at the famed Basel School of Design in Basel, Switzerland. The 432 page heavily illustrated book is a document of Olpe’s work with pinhole cameras and pinhole photography, and is gorgeous in the way only a Swiss author and publisher can pull off. Niggli’s books have won numerous design awards, including for “The Most Beautiful Swiss Books“ and “The Most Beautiful Books Worldwide.“

Out of Focus includes a half dozen of my pinhole photos (New York City bridges and area beaches), as well as images by 35 other international photographers, including Georg Aerni, Eric Renner/Nancy Spencer, and Alec Soth. Olpe, with whom I studied in 2006 as part of a three-week design course, invited me to contribute to his book and, needless to say, I have been thrilled to be a part of the project.

An exhibit at the Swiss Camera Museum in Vevey, Switzerland, is timed to coincide with publication of the book and runs from September 8 to January 13, 2013. The exhibit includes select photos from the book, as well as many of the pinhole cameras Olpe has made.

From Niggli’s website: Peter Olpe has been manufacturing customized pinhole cameras since 1978. In 2012 he donated 90 of his cameras to the Swiss Camera Museum in Vevey where the collection will be exhibited. In images and texts the book Out of Focus presents these cameras and, in addition, tells the story of the author‘s ever-changing interests in pinhole photography – a written documentation of Peter Olpe’s work as a designer, photographer, illustrator and teacher. Furthermore, the creative work of 36 photographers is presented, all of whom Peter Olpe invited to take photos with one of his pinhole cameras in a kind of “art barter”. His offer was simple. If the resulting images were of a quality to be used in the book and the exhibition in Vevey, the camera would pass into the possession of the artist. During the project, Olpe designed many unique tailor-made cameras for the artists – and just as many diverse and surprising photographs were created using them. 432 pages, approx. 850 illustrations, 19,5 × 22,5 cm, hardcover, French / English / German, CHF 78.–, Euro (D) 62.–, Euro (A) 63.70, ISBN 978-3-7212-0851-1

Out of Focus is not yet available for sale in the US, but I’ll let you know when it arrives in bookstores.

Since March of this year I’ve been on something of a pinhole bender. I’ve taken over 70 rolls of film (120), amounting to over 800 images. The photos are of NYC architecture, ferries, subways, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Green-Wood Cemetery, the High Line, Times Square, the Brooklyn Bridge, 42nd Street, the Coney Island Mermaid Parade, the Easter Parade, the AIDS walk, and more.

After taking photos of the city on and off — generally pretty aimlessly — for much of the past 21 years, my shooting has suddenly come into much more focus, so to speak. I’m working on several related projects and am taking photos with specific subjects and concepts in mind. I also started using a new camera (still a small cardboard box wrapped in black plastic and electrical tape) that has a smaller aperture, and the images are noticeably sharper.

Most of the new photos I’m posting here are included in the PHOTOS > NEW IMAGES slide shows. I’ll also post some of them individually in the blog when there are stories worth telling.

Pinhole New York is a website and blog to showcase the pinhole photographs I’ve taken in the metropolitan area over the past 20 years, as well as the new ones I’m taking now. To a large degree the purpose of the blog is two-fold: a) to gather my thoughts for several personal projects I’m developing and, b) to hopefully gain some traction with an audience that I can use as marketing muscle down the road. Translation: if you like what you see please “like”, “share”, and subscribe to my site. The more of an audience I get the better.

During the next few weeks I’ll post a handful of “newsworthy” items. A half dozen of my photos are included in Out of Focus, a gorgeous new art book by Peter Olpe, a Swiss teacher recently retired from the Basel School of Design. There’s an exhibit associated with the publication of the book at the Swiss Camera Museum running from September 8 through January 13. The Dumbo Arts Festival is coming up (September 28-30) and I’ll be participating in that for the fourth year running. Beyond that I’ll be posting some of the 800+ photos I’ve taken around New York City in the last few months as part of several projects that are in full gear but which, for now, will remain unnamed. Finally, I’ll dig into my archives and post some older photos, relate some technical info, and share fun stories of photographing with my scary-looking little black box, such as the time I was instructed on a NY Water Taxi to stop whatever the hell I was up to (taking pictures) because it was making the other passengers nervous!

If you’d like to stay in the loop on what I’m doing here (I’ll be posting regular updates in the next 6-12 months), please subscribe to my blog or “like” my Pinhole NY Facebook page. You’ll be notified whenever I add a post.